Pixelpalooza: 15“ Retina MacBook Pro reviewed

Performance

Performance is in line with what you expect from a MacBook Pro. The quad-core Ivy Bridge processor is more than fast enough for the kind of workloads we tend to handle on a daily basis here in the Ars Orbiting HQ, with plenty of power to spare. If you do heavy photo, graphics, or video (or some other comparable compute-intensive work), this is the performance-oriented, over-sized "ultrabook" for you.

At just under 4.5 pounds, the Retina MacBook Pro certainly pushes the definition of ultrabook to its extreme, but so do plenty of other so-called ultrabooks. (Intel currently doesn't have any weight requirement for a machine to be called an "ultrabook.") And the Retina MacBook Pro meets the other requirements; most importantly, its 18mm thickness meets the maximum for ultrabooks with 13" or smaller screens, much less the 21mm requirement for screens 14" and larger. It also wakes from sleep in less than 7 seconds, has over 5 hours of battery life, is "responsive while active," and has USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt ports.

Taking a look at some benchmarks, you can see that the Retina MacBook Pro's 2.3GHz quad-core Ivy Bridge processor easily bests the previous generation MacBook Pro using a 2.2GHz quad-core Sandy Bridge processor. There's a roughly 15 percent overall speed boost when memory bandwidth is factored in. It also trounces both a 2.7GHz dual-core Sandy Bridge processor from a 13" MacBook Pro as well as a maxed-out Ivy Bridge MacBook Air. With nearly twice the computing performance of the best MacBook Air, it's something to keep in mind if you're trying to decide between the Retina Pro and the much lighter Air.

Longer bars are better.

Looking at graphics, too, it's clear that NVIDIA's latest mobile GPU helps the MacBook Pro's performance. We were surprised to find that the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M clocked in slightly slower than the AMD Radeon HD 6750M in the older Pro. We believe that the GT 650M's potential performance advantage is being hidden somewhat by the scaling done by OS X. Unsurprisingly, the performance is far better than on machines which rely on Intel integrated graphics alone.

Longer bars are better.

Apple has also significantly improved the speed of its proprietary SSD modules. According to iFixit, the Toshiba-made modules are using a SandForce-sourced controller with custom firmware, and the extra speed shows. We clocked the drive maxing out at around 470MB/s reading, and 410MB/s writing—that's significantly faster than the older SSD modules, which were limited to 3Gbps speed. The newer ones are clearly taking full advantage of the 6Gbps connection Intel's chipsets offer.

Longer bars are better.

Also note that the Retina MacBook Pro blows away a hard drive-equipped MacBook Pro. Besides raw throughput that is at least four times faster, you can see how the performance profiles are completely different when shuffling around small files, which the OS tends to do quite often during normal operations.

Subjectively, the machine just feels faster at everything: launching apps, saving files, loading webpages, scrolling long documents, running Photoshop filters, rendering 3D scenes. It's subtle and hard to quantify (Photoshop launched 0.3 seconds faster?), but you feel it everywhere. And all those little speedups really add up over the course of a day.

Apple has made a big deal about the new asymmetrical fan design, which is supposed to make the fans output a range of frequencies that sound more like white noise than like one (often annoying) frequency. We barely noticed the fans during our testing, though they did kick in while running some of the more aggressive benchmarks. At first, I thought something had happened to the TV in the next room, as it was displaying static. It turned out to be the Retina MacBook Pro sitting right in front of me.

Once I got used to the sound, I could tell where it was coming from, and it does seem to be slightly less obtrusive that the usual laptop fan sound. It's hard to say whether it will be an improvement for your particular workflow, but in our experience, the processor was barely taxed during our usual workday. We suspect heavy users will welcome any improvement in fan noise, however slight.

Battery

Apple has boosted the battery capacity of the Retina MacBook Pro to 95Whr, a 23 percent improvement over the standard 15" MacBook Pro. Despite the pixel-doubled Retina display, Apple still rates the machine at "up to 7 hours of wireless Web use."

For comparison, the Retina iPad has a 70 percent larger battery than its non-Retina predecessor in order to maintain a comparable battery life. Apple makes up some of the difference with low-voltage DDR3L RAM, and relying on SSDs instead of spinning hard drives for extra battery savings. It still can also switch between the Intel integrated graphics and the NVIDIA GT 650M, though in practice it seems the NVIDIA is active more than absolutely necessary.

We believe that the graphics switching is largely responsible for the relatively low battery runtimes we saw during our own "real world" wireless Web testing, which averaged just over 6 hours. Typically we often eke out more than what Apple states, but with the 15" Retina MacBook Pro, we consistently got less than 7 full hours.

Apple's test suite includes loading a series of webpages and typing into a document repeatedly while WiFi is turned on and screen brightness is set to half. Our test involved running the same applications we use on a daily basis, including Safari, Colloquy, iChat, Reeder, Chrome, Twitter, Outlook, Dictionary, and TextEdit, as well as a handful of menulets like Fantastical, Dropbox, and Skitch. Most of these apps use very little CPU while idle, so we don't believe they contributed significantly to battery use.

It seems that the aggressive switching to the NVIDIA GPU can account for the discrepancy. Some relatively low-performance apps like Twitter, among others, use certain graphics features that cause the discrete GPU to be turned on, whether or not it's even necessary to use those features. Cody Kreiger's gfxCardStatus can be used to check the GPU switching status, and can even force OS X to use one or the other. However, it hasn't yet been tested with the latest MacBook Pros.

Apple has previously explained that it prefers that its graphics switching system require no user interaction, but we feel like improvements could be made. The system is currently geared toward better performance in all cases, whereas we think it should optimize for better battery life when not connected to a power adapter. Apple could hide a GPU switch as an advanced user option, perhaps as part of the Energy Saver settings. Or it could offer developers an API to simply inform the OS whether an app prefers "more power" or "better battery life" for its operation. The battery hit isn't huge, but we've heard reports of the Retina MacBook Pro battery lasting as long as 8 hours under light loads. When working remotely, nearly two extra hours can make a huge difference.

Weight

At 4.5 pounds, the Retina MacBook Pro should not be mistaken for a 15" MacBook Air. We suspect Apple could build such a machine, perhaps with a non-Retina display and a ULV processor, and boast a 10-hour battery life. It might even sell well.

If you're currently using an 11" MacBook Air, we don't think you'll be comfortable with the jump in size and weight. If you regularly use a 13" MacBook Air, however, the change might not be as drastic.

If you're thinking about moving from an 11" MacBook Air to the 15" Retina MacBook Pro, be advised that portability is vastly different between the two machines.

Chris Foresman

We know at least two developers who switched from an 11" Air to the Retina MacBook Pro for the screen and performance boost, but keep in mind it will require some adjustment to your handling. Depending on your workflow, the switch may be worth it—one developer told Ars that a large project which took 30.7 seconds to build on his 11" Air took just 8.9 seconds on his Retina MacBook Pro. That's nearly 3.5 times faster to build an app, something developers do quite often when testing and debugging.

If you're currently a 15" MacBook Pro user considering the Retina for your next upgrade, it's easy to recommend. It's just over a pound lighter, it's thinner, and it's every bit as powerful. Plus, the screen is honestly gorgeous. It can also be set at a resolution comparable to the "high-res" option previously available on the 15" MacBook Pro with excellent results.

Pretty much the same can be said for current 17" MacBook Pro users. As we noted previously, one of the scaled settings is equivalent to the screen real estate of the now defunct 17" MacBook Pro, yet still appears slightly sharper due to Apple's scaling methods. You'll get a machine that's smaller, lighter, and every bit as capable, while still being able to preview full 1080p HD content.

13" MacBook Pro users have a slightly tougher choice. You'll get lots more screen real estate and raw performance moving up, for effectively the same weight. It's physically bigger, though, and obviously costs twice as much. You get what you pay for, but like MacBook Air users, it's going to be an adjustment in handling. We recommend trying one out at an Apple Store or Best Buy to see if the feel is right for you, but you won't be disappointed by performance.

Conclusion

Apple is betting on the future needs of professionals with the Retina MacBook Pro. Not everyone is entirely ready for that future right now, though, so Apple is offering Ivy Bridge-bumped versions of the "old" 15" and 13" MacBook Pro for those who aren't ready to make the leap. But it's clear where the proverbial puck is going to be, and the Retina MacBook Pro demonstrates Apple's determination to skate there instead of where the puck is currently.

The Retina MacBook Pro is a solid machine with plenty of pro performance, a pro-level display in nearly every sense of the word, and for most users, plenty of high-performance ports. Your needs may require one or more dongles, but like every other port standard Apple has pushed, it's ready for the future if not exactly covering all the needs of everyone today. (Remember when Apple ditched serial, ADB, and SCSI ports for USB in 1998?)

Extra options can quickly bump the price of a Retina MacBook Pro up beyond $3,000, but its entry-level $2,199 seems quite reasonable compared to other portable Macs. Windows PC users may wince at the price, but which other vendor is offering what is essentially a quad-core 15" ultrabook with comparable resolution? (Hint: none).

There's a rumor that Apple was also planning a retina makeover for the 13" MacBook Pro as well, though display yields are a possible cause for the delay. It makes perfect sense—we highly expect all of Apple's notebooks to have retina displays as soon as is feasible giving manufacturing and cost constraints. If the current 15" Retina model is any indication, the future of notebooks looks quite good.

The Good:

Retina display really does impress

Quad-core Ivy Bridge processor and NVIDIA GT 650M GPU are powerful

Thinner and lighter than old 15" MacBook Pro, same weight as 13" MacBook Pro

USB 3.0! Two Thunderbolt ports! HDMI!

The Bad:

FireWire and Ethernet require dongles

Despite thinness, won't replace an Air for most users considering a switch

Build-to-order options get expensive fast

The Ugly:

Promoted Comments

I upgraded to a 2.6GHz Retina MBP; 512GB SDD, 8GB Memory. Yeah, I know. Shoulda probably got the 16GB but I am coming from a 13" 2.6GHz C2D w/4GB, which as it is wasn't having much in the way of memory issues. I am a web developer, not a photoshop jockey so 8GB should be fine for the foreseeable future.

- Fan noise is different from my previous MBP. It seems quieter, and it's more like white noise than a typical whirring fan noise. It was obvious to me that it was the fans kicking on but it wasn't disturbing.

- It got HOT playing Diablo 3, even with the fans going full force. If doing something load intensive I would make sure it's on a desk and not in my lap. For normal use it's very comfortable and perfectly fine in my lap. But something that's going to push the machine hard (like playing D3 in 2880x1800), put it on a desk/table.

- D3 (post 1.03 patch) played in 2880x1800 much better than I expected. Not nearly as well as my PC plays it in 1920x1200 but my PC is a 2500K w/a 560 Ti and 16GB of RAM, and obviously 1920 is a lot less pixels to push than 2880. So I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't yet tried Portal or Civ 5 though I've read that it runs those both pretty well. Civ 5: Gods and Kings seems to run better than regular Civ 5 did on my PC, so I'm hoping it might run well on this machine.

- The screen really is amazing. Anyone who says it's pointless either has bad eyesight or just doesn't appreciate a good display. As someone who has always been a fan of quality displays, there was no question I was going to buy this machine as soon as the Apple Store was up after the announcement. I am not at all disappointed. It's the best display I've ever seen on any laptop, and one of the best displays I've ever seen period.

- This is my work machine which I will be working on 8-12 hours a day, and have been working on it since Tuesday this week in 1920x1200 mode, and have no eye strain or fatigue whatsoever. Text looks amazingly smooth and crisp in Retina supporting apps. Unfortunately I do a lot of work in Chrome which has not yet been updated (I use main channel, not Canary, to make sure my work renders properly in the mainstream build.) Looking forward to the Retina patch coming to main channel.

- I never use CDs/DVDs, so the loss of the drive was no loss for more whatsoever.

- 512GB is plenty for me. My old machine had 320GB and was not full even with numerous games, several seasons of TV, etc. on it. I didn't think 256GB would be enough for several years of use without getting to the point of having to delete stuff to avoid getting full, so the 512GB was very appealing. The 768GB option seems too expensive to me.

- If it's time for an upgrade, if you can afford this machine and you're thinking about it, I highly advise pulling the trigger. Everyone who's seen it to so far, even people who aren't big hardware geeks like my GF absolutely love it and want one for themselves.

I know it's been said multiple times, but that soldered ram is one of the two things stopping me from buying it. The other reason that makes me hesitant is that battery, too many problems with the old MacBooks and those batteries make me cringe at non-replaceable batteries. If they dropped the memory upgrage by $50-75 and battery replacement by $50, I'd be their next satisfied customer. I am aware that it seems like I'm being a little nitpicky, but I believe most people would agree with me.

We have a corporate fleet of hundreds of macbook pros. The units with non-user replaceable batteries have been rock solid, we might have replaced two or three batteries in the past 3 years. That's less than 1% of the fleet.

The non unibody macbook pros went through batteries like crazy, just not seeing that any more. Reliability is not a problem.

On the new Retina Macbook Pro, you'll find an additional checkbox in the Get Info... window for an application: "Open in Low Resolution". For some applications, like Twitter, it is checked and greyed out so you cannot uncheck it. For iWorks applications (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) it is checked but not greyed out so you can uncheck it and get rid of the fuzziness.

I guess iWorks was prepared for retina displays a while ago but they figured they'd have updated it by now -- it is overdue for an update -- so the ability wasn't enabled.